Wednesday, March 19, 2014

BOKO HARAM INSURGENCIES: You Won't Believe How Much The North Is Demanding

Northern lawmakers have put the losses resulting from Boko Haram attacks in the North-East at “over N100bn,” an amount that is needed to rebuild the area.

A member of the House of Representatives from Borno State‎, Mr. Abdulrahman Abba-Terrab, who moved a motion on the cost of the attacks on Wednesday, said the sect caused “immeasurable destruction of lives, property, and public infrastructure including schools, hospitals, worship centres and market places.”

Abba-Terab led the debate on the floor against the backdrop of the N2bn the Federal Government earmarked for the rebuilding of the North-East this year.

For a start, he suggested that the N2bn should be increased to N12bn in the 2014 budget.

He spoke further, “Some of the funds provided for future purposes under the capital supplementation head‎ of the 2014 budget do not compare in priority when the country is losing one-sixth of its contribution to unimaginable magnitude of destruction.”

One of his prayers endorsed by the House was that the Committee on Appropriation should review the N2bn upward to N12bn as the government’s support initiative for the north-east.The motion was unanimously adopted.

Meanwhile, the House also gave 24 hours to its committees yet to defend the 2014 budget estimates before the Committee on Appropriation to do‎ so.

Failing to do so by Thursday, the House said it would be forced to adopt the executive proposals for the Ministries, Departments and Agencies they supervised.

A letter the Chairman of the committee, Mr. John Enoh, wrote the Speaker, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, named over 20 defaulting committees.